


Why You?

by QueenXplsnMurder



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Human AU, One-Shot, POV Alternating, Tragedy, Writing Exercise, based on prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28599570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenXplsnMurder/pseuds/QueenXplsnMurder
Summary: Based on a writing prompt from pintrest. I'll post the prompt at the end of the story to avoid spoilers.Featuring Jude and Cardan - Human AU. - Take heed of the archve warnings and tags.This one I started February last year and couldn't bring myself to continue. I have a outline for a more complete story, however, I am posting what I have because it's annoying me for having been in my WIP folder for so long.
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Why You?

**Author's Note:**

> Take heed of warnings and tags.
> 
> Characters belong to Holly. I just twist them for amusement.
> 
> You can thank The Invisible starring Justin Chatwin for this one. I was obsessed with that movie for years.
> 
> Not Beta'd.

I've never felt pain like this before

And I'm almost grateful I can feel myself slipping away. My mother isn't here, my father either. I don't know why I'm surprised, when most parents get the 'Come quick, your son is in the hospital' call they get their arses to their kids side. Not mine. I sigh, they haven't been there for me throughout my life I thought they'd at least show up for the end of it. And it is the end this time, I can feel it in the steady but slowing beat of my heart.

Instead I lay in my hospital bed, arms bruised and bleeding where the nurses have removed most of the monitors and wires from my skin. Leaving only the painkillers and the oxygen tube, they almost left the heart monitor, but I didn't want the shrill beeping to be the last thing I hear. My brother is by my side, sat in a chair with his nose in his phone as is usual for Balekin. And my ex-girlfriend Nicasia is on my other side, tears and mascara streaming down her face as she cries. She may not have been the best girlfriend, running off with my friend, but she's been a good friend. Especially these last months.

The minutes tick and I feel myself slip further away from them, no energy to speak or move my body any more as my heart ticks down to its last beat. My eyes close slightly before sunset and don't open again as I hear Nicasia cry harder and a rustle as Balekin puts his phone away for his goodbye. And then I tune it all out. _Duh-dum.._ Disappointed my parents never showed. _Duh-dum_.. Disappointed my other siblings didn't come by. _Duh-dum.._ Disappointed I never got to live a full life. _Duh-.._

\-----------

**I've never felt pain like this before.**

**I stop in the middle of the path as my heart starts to race. Taryn notices and pauses next to me asking if I'm okay, but I barely hear her over the whooshing in my ears. I move my hand up to my heart sure I'll feel it trying to break out of my chest and splatter to the floor but all I feel is the cold crisp of my t-shirt covering my chest.**

**I start to feel dizzy and wobble on my feet a bit as I try to blink away the dots in my vision. What's happening to me?**

**Taryn guides me to a bench a little way ahead of us and I barely get there in time before my legs give out, falling onto the bench as Taryn calls for help. People begin to crowd us as my breathing gets harder and I start to breathe in quick gasps, the lack of oxygen making my dizziness worse and my limbs begin to numb. Taryn is on her phone now, maybe calling mum, maybe calling an ambulance. She keeps looking at me, the look on her face the same as when she's bossing me around like she expects me to do something.**

**Instead I sit on the bench trying to take a deep breath, I can't focus on her words, I can't focus on anything but staying awake. I feel so, so tired. My lungs ache and my entire body feels too hot and too heavy.**

**The minutes tick and I can feel my consciousness slipping away, quickly running out of energy to speak or move my body any more as my eyes begin to get heavy, too heavy. My eyes close slightly before sunset and don't open again as I hear Taryns garbled voice shouting at me but I can't make out the words as I feel the sensation of falling. My heartbeat pounds in my ears and my consciousness is hanging on by a thread. _Duh-dum.._ What's happening?. _Duh-dum_.. Has Taryn called for help?. _Duh-dum.._ I can sleep for a little while, right?. _Duh-.._ **

\-------------------------

I vault into sitting up, my body bending as I inhale a sharp, full breath. The oxygen flooding my lungs feeling like tiny pinpricks. What the hells? It was over. I was out of time. Why am I still here? My hands move to my chest as I gulp down huge breaths, my heart racing _duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum._ I look around and see Nicasias shocked face.

"I told them!" I gasp out, angry. "I never wanted this!" No matter how I went, no matter what age, I didn't want this. I even got a DNR when I turned 18 a year ago. Once upon a time DNR stood for 'do not resuscitate', now it stands for 'do not resurrect'. I told everyone, including my doctors, that I never wanted this because the price is too high.

About 100 years ago a group of spiritualists came out of nowhere, lead by a guy called Garrett, claiming they knew the secret to resurrection. Initially everyone thought they were crazy, a cult or both. They had thirteen members including their leader and people gave them a wide berth, whispering about them and laughing. That is, until they proved it.

One night in the town square Garrett shot his second in command dead and then his followers brought him back to life. For a week straight this group held 'shows' killing each other in increasingly gory ways and then bringing them back to life, with any sign of injury miraculously gone. On night seven someone in the audience called them out that it was a act and no one should waste their time on Garrett and his farce, when each follower chose an audience member at random to murder.

These unwilling volunteers awoke remembering their murder and in awe that they were alive and whole once more. And no one challenged him again, instead asking for their secret, trying to buy the knowledge that can bring someone back to life.

Garrett declined to sell it though, anyone wishing to know had to pledge to his following and learn it for themselves with a oath to never share it outside his order, so some of the townspeople decided to join and study with them. They would provide the service to the general public but never share the secret outside of the followers.

Over the next few decades Garrett set up his new followers in every major city and country in the world. The public never has to pay for the resurrection service, instead a portion of our taxes go to the upkeep of the order based in our city. And now everyone knows death doesn't have to mean the end. Over the years three things about this service became as well known as Newton's law and Murphy's law.

Firstly, the service can only be used upon death, it has no effect on illness, meaning a person has to actually die before the order can bring them back. It's a resurrection, not a miracle cure. 

Secondly, the service must be used within 24hrs of death or it won't work. Which is another reason the order is so spread out, _everyone_ is within 24hrs of a order house.

And thirdly, the cost of a life saved is a life taken. It wasn't until years and years after Garrett and his order arrived that it came out that for every life saved by his followers resurrections, a life would end. People have been studying this phenomenon for decades now and they're no closer to figuring out a pattern. It's completely random.

It's because of this last part that the anti-order movement was born, those who protested and campaigned to get rid of the order once and for all. That prolonging a life by taking one was unnatural and unethical. And petitioning the public to sign DNRs, thinking if they get enough people to have DNRs that they can get rid of the order. But people are selfish. And self-serving. And the order will never go away because the people get desperate when their own or their loved ones lives are over. They can't claim ignorance of the cost either, even if they lived under a rock and didn't know it, the order tell you before you sign the contract. A disclaimer that the life you are saving means another person paying the price.

And I never wanted it. When I was first told I would die young, it never even crossed my mind to approach the order, I don't want someone else's blood on my hands. And I have repeatedly told everyone I don't want the order to get involved in my life, even at it's very end.

I wasn't ever anti-order in the way a lot of the anti-resurrection activists are, but I still signed a DNR as soon as I was old enough. The life taken is taken at random and isn't prejudiced, it doesn't take the corrupt or evil. It takes as many poor people as it does rich people, as many men as it does women and as many young as it does old. 

My breathing gets easier and I ease myself back to laying on the hospital bed. The oxygen tube and cannula giving me the painkillers gone now, the nurses must have taken them when I died. I turn to ask Nicasia how long it's been since I died and see she's frantically typing on her phone, so I bite my tongue and take stock of myself. No aches, no pains. My heartbeat is steady and strong - something it hasn't been for weeks.

I'm tired though, so very tired. And I guess that makes sense, my body died and that's a traumatic thing regardless of whether it was permanent. So I close my eyes and realise I don't have to ask who did this to me. My parents may not be present in my life or that bothered what I do with it but it’s very in character for them to completely disregard my wishes and do the one thing I asked them not to. I wonder idly if they'll show up now or if I'll have to track them down for that confrontation.

My eyes shoot open as I feel a hesitant hand at my wrist, pressing lightly on my pulse point there. It's Nicasia, checking my pulse, her wide eyes on mine as I look up at her. "Your parents?" She asks quietly.

I don't know for sure, so I just shrug. It might be common knowledge that resurrection is a very real thing now, but neither of us have personally experienced it. Our families rich enough that most of our problems can be solved by throwing money at them and not having to go to the order.

She squeezes my hand slightly as my eyes drift close once more and I hear her move away, likely to settle in the chair by my side as I fall back to sleep.

\-----------------------

I'm right in the end, about my parents not showing up in the hospital. I don't see them at all in the days following my resurrection, my brother comes back to the hospital but I'm too groggy to really take much notice. I hear him tell Nicasia he's told our family though and Nicasia tells him she's arranged for my return home. She lives in the same building as me, so I guess it was easier for her to do it, especially when I'm unsure my family even know where I live.

It isn't long before I settle back into my life before my illness and my family remain as present in my second life as they were in my first: Not present at all except family events and major holidays. Nicasia calls me up or pops by my place every day as if she can't believe I'm still here and to give me a daily reminder not to look for the cost of my recovery. _It's morbid_ she says, and _most people don't look for **that** person._ Which is where she's wrong, most people _can't_ look for _that_ person but like I said, most problems can be solved by throwing money at them. Due to my family name and fortune I have access to a lot of services and information that others don't.

But still it takes me weeks to find the person whose life was ended so mine could continue.

At first I was trying to search using the local and national obituaries, but I soon realised not everyone announces their dead in the papers. That wasted about a week. Then I thought I'd try the registrar, but again that failed as my local one would only have a limited reach. Then I decided to throw money at this problem, my parents tried to talk me out of it probably more for their own conscience than mine, it was them that approached the order. I paid the police in our town to let me at their database, but searching the day I died came up with too many people. It occurred to me to narrow down the time as people are taken at around the same time someone is resurrected, I found out from Nicasia that I awoke 45 minutes after I was pronounced dead. That gave me a timeframe to search: between 6.20pm and 7.05pm. So I searched nationally for any deaths between that time frame and on that day. 

That search still came up with a lot of people but not nearly as many. And from there I spent time looking at each person, any pre-existing conditions ruled them out, as well as any external factors like car incidents, murders, suicides, that left me with two people. Both female. Both in the same town I'm from.

One was 6.30pm and one at 7.05pm, when I woke up.

One was 42 and one was 18, my age.

One was in a restaurant 30 miles away and one was on the street, 4 blocks from the hospital I was at.

It's supposed to be random, not coincidental. But I know which one it is. I can feel it.

Her name was Jude Duarte.

\---------------------------

**It took him weeks to find me. And every day that passed I was sure he would give up the search. But he didn't.**

**Everyone knows the rules of the resurrection. The 24hr time limit, the limit of the magic being only for the dead - not the sick, and the cost. But one that's not so known that I know now? My life was the cost of his own being returned and because of that I'm _tethered_ to him. **

**I became aware, what has to be, a few days after I died. He was leaving the hospital and I was forced along with him.**

**I've tried moving further away from him. I've tried to leave. I've tried staying still when he's moving. I always _snap_ back to him, I can't leave. I hit out at him, I tried to knock things over, I screamed at him. Nothing worked. I'm now just a passive observer to the life that should have been mine.**

**His search surprised me though, I've never heard of anyone searching out the life that ended for their own and for whatever reason the government, the police, even the damn hospital were pandering to him. They gave him access no one but government employees should have. Who is he?!**

**Because of that he got my name, I thought he would give up once he got my name. I thought wrong.**

**He dived into my online life, he scoured my social media profiles, he read articles I was part of or mentioned in. He looked up my family, looking through Taryns social media too.**

**Day after day he continued.**

**Author's Note:**

> Don't come for me. I had a rough year 2019-2020 and wrote A LOT of angst.
> 
> A writing prompt from pintrest:
> 
> After people die, their spirits can be brought back from death but at the cost of one random human life. Is it worth it?
> 
> I did consider keeping this to myself but I need it out in the world. I may revisit this one at a later date to complete.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
